"Well, look what the cat dragged in," came an annoyed voice from the dining room. Knuckles sat by himself with his feet on the table. Rouge set her plate down next to the echidna and flicked his ear playfully.

"Good morning to you, too, sunshine," she said. Knuckles took his feet off of the table as Rouge started eating her breakfast.

"Mrs. Charis is pretty upset today, huh?" he asked seriously.

Rouge swallowed a mouthful of scrambled eggs.

"Yeah. She's not too happy."

Knuckles grunted in response and looked out the window at the younger Mobians, Gabriel, and Agatha playing outside together. Every now and then, one or two of them would freeze as another person tagged them. Tails halted in a one-legged position, and after a second of wobbly struggling to balance, he collapsed and rubbed the back of his neck. Knuckles yawned and stood up.

"I think I'll take a nap now," he said, stretching out his arms. Rouge raised an eyebrow.

"Since when have you napped right after breakfast?" she inquired suspiciously.

Knuckles crossed his arms defiantly, like a child.

"Since now, because I'm tired and edgy. This morning was rough."

"How much did I miss, big guy? All I could hear from upstairs was the blue faker raising his voice and Shadow countering the arguments."

Knuckles growled and gritted his teeth.

"You didn't miss much. And how many times do I have to tell you not to call Sonic a 'faker'?"

Rouge strutted to the doorway with her plate in hand.

"One more plus the last few times," she replied smartly, "now tell me, what did I miss?"

Knuckles sighed in defeat.

"Not only do you crave treasure, but apparently gossip, too. Well, Shadow made a smart remark at the table when everyone was tense enough. You can guess that it was a comment against Sonic, I'm sure," he added. Rouge nodded.

". . . and?"

"And . . . it all went downhill from there. Then you tackled Shadow before things got too heated up."

Rouge nodded in self-approval at her accomplishment.

"All in a day's work," she said, winking at Knuckles. Knuckles, with his arms still crossed, shook his head in serious thought.

"I don't know . . . everyone was all snappy before. Mrs. Charis is in a rough mood, too. I mean, she's always so . . . perky and cheerful. Do you suppose there's something to worry about?" Knuckles thought aloud. Rouge stood in silence for a moment, and then flew into the kitchen and back in two seconds flat. She returned with a piece of the newspaper—the front page.

"Read this article."

"Huh? Why?"

"Will ya just do it?" Rouge demanded, annoyed. Bewildered, Knuckles skimmed the page. His eyes widened as he read more of the article. Once he'd finished, Knuckles clenched his spiked fists angrily.

"Who has the nerve to even consider . . ." Rouge slapped a gloved hand around his mouth.

"Shh!" she looked around to see if anyone else was around. Seeing no one in close range besides Mrs. Charis, who was in the kitchen, Rouge slowly took her hand away from the echidna's mouth. "Okay hothead, here's the thing: This is why Mrs. Charis is so upset. She doesn't want us to be imprisoned, hurt or killed. She also doesn't want the kids to know about this . . . yet."

Knuckles slid his hand down his face, worried, angry, and concerned all at the same time.

"I knew this would happen at some point," he said sadly.

"Yeah, and just when we thought we were in the clear," Rouge concurred.

Both of them looked out the window, seeing the group of Mobians and two humans frolicking about again. Agatha chased Tails around, when suddenly she tripped and fell. For a moment, she laid on the ground, her body shaking in a strange way. The odd movements registered as laughter as Sonic helped her up and revealed a smile on the girl's reddened face. The red echidna chuckled at the slight incident.

"When do we tell them?" he wondered aloud. Rouge sighed.

"Sometime today, at least," replied the bat. She gazed out the window at everyone running around and laughing with delight. After a moment, she fluttered to the door.

"Where are you going?" Knuckles asked.

"I think I'm going to tell Shadow."

"Right now?"

Rouge tilted her head.

"Is there a problem with that, hothead?"

Knuckles let out a low sound from the back of his throat.

"Fine. But if he gets angry, call for me. I feel like punching something."

"Well, quite frankly, big guy, apparently I'm the only one this morning who had the gall to take him down when things were getting intense. Believe me, I'll be fine."

Knuckles was left furiously speechless as Rouge flew up the stairs.

"Shadow? Hey, Shadow?"

Rouge called for the hedgehog, but there was no answer. She muttered to herself.

"Come on, Shadow, I know you're up here . . ."

After a few more minutes of searching, the bat flew past a closed door. She stopped herself and quietly knocked.

"Hello? Anyone in there?"

No response. Rouge turned the knob and slowly pushed the door open.

"Hello?"

When the door opened, the white bat widened her eyes. This room was the twins' room, complete with two baby cribs, a wall painted sky-blue and decorated with clouds, and a tiny dresser and toys on the ground. Shadow stood frozen next to one of the white cribs, gently holding one of the babies in his arms. Rouge tried to stifle her laughter.

"Bad time, eh?" she whispered in a fit of giggles. Shadow hastily placed the sleeping child back into his crib. His muzzle turned red.

"His crying was getting on my nerves," Shadow explained, gritting his teeth. "If you dare to tell one of the others . . ."

"Oh, I won't, daddy," she teased, still giggling. Shadow hurried out of the room, dragging her by the arm. When he closed the door, Rouge had tears streaming down her eyes.

"What is so funny? Stop that, or you'll wake them up and this time you'll be the one to be rocking them back to sleep!"

"I'm sorry . . ." Rouge said between laughs, "but it was just so . . . unexpected!"

Shadow rolled his eyes.

"Get a grip, already," he growled.

Rouge doubled over with laughter. Shadow continued to stare at her until she could control herself and the laughter.

"I'm sorry . . . ha . . . ahhh . . ." Rouge wiped a tear from her eye and straightened herself up.

"Now why did you want me?" asked Shadow.

Rouge pulled the front page of the paper out from her boot, given that she had no pockets. She handed it to Shadow.

"Read this part," she said, pointing to the article. "And don't wake up the kids," she added, giggling.

"Oh, shut up!" Shadow whisper-bellowed, definitely not wanting to wake up the twins again. His red eyes moved across the page and he mumbled while reading. As he finished reading, Shadow slowly lifted his head from the page. He frowned. "So what?"

Rouge lifted her eyebrows.

"This guy wants to get rid of us. He says he thinks we're dangerous and need to be locked up."

"As if I haven't gotten enough of that already," Shadow muttered, "I'll show him dangerous. A bit of Chaos Energy could easily convert him."

"That's what I thought. We could take him on, no problem. But here's the thing . . ."

Shadow crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow.

"I'm listening."

"Mrs. Charis doesn't want us to go after him. She thinks it's too much of a risk for us to hunt him down."

"Ha! Team Dark would never miss an opportunity to attack."

Rouge shook her head.

"We might have to this time," Rouge said. Shadow said nothing in response. He stared at the ground. Rouge put her hand on Shadow's shoulder. "You realize it's for Mrs. Charis, right?"

Shadow bared his teeth slightly and kept his head down.

" . . . yes."

Rouge smiled and gave Shadow a punch on the shoulder.

"Good! Now you go back to doing what you were doing. I'll come back to check on you."

Shadow pursed his lips and walked away from the door as Rouge smirked and began to snicker. It's not worth it . . . he thought grimly.